Chapter 286
The launch bay trembles under our feet as we race toward the warship.
It’s bigger than I imagined. Sleek lines. Armor-plated curves. Not built for beauty, but for power. A predator disguised as a cathedral. The design hums with something ancient and wrong in all the right ways—clearly Enkian, but touched by the Ether.
My legs barely work. Tyler half-drags, half-carries me across the platform, Delphi and Peter right behind. Miore and Arista keep scanning the shadows, weapons up. Wake charges ahead, already slicing the security panel open at the base of the ship’s ramp.
I see the orb in my hand before I realize I’ve drawn it. It pulses in time with the warship.
We reach the boarding hatch. The ramp extends with a hiss, unfolding like the ship has been waiting for us.
Wake grabs my arm before I can step forward. “Phoebe—can you do this?”
“No,” I say, deadpan. “But I’m gonna anyway.”
He grins, just once. Then we’re moving.
I don’t know how I know where to go. The corridors curve and breathe like lungs. The metal underfoot is warm. It’s like I’m walking through the belly of a beast that remembers me. The orb glows brighter with every step I take.
We reach the command deck, and it all falls into place.
The console flares to life the moment I press the orb into the central node. Lines of light race across the panels. The ship shudders.
Then it screams.
Not a mechanical sound. A voice. A roar.
From the floor to the ceiling, every bolt and seam vibrates as the warship wakes up from its long sleep. Gears twist. Engines ignite. The wings—massive, manta-shaped things—unfurl with a sound like thunder splitting the ocean.
“Everybody onboard!” Wake shouts into the comm.
The Nereid crew floods in—Delphi, Tyler, Peter, Silo, Cora, Miore, Arista, all soaked in sweat and blood and adrenaline. The stasis-released Enkians follow without a word, taking up positions like they already know their way around.
Below us, the ocean floor quakes. I feel the ship rising—not slowly. Not cautiously.
It tears through the launch bay like a god breaking free from a prison.
Steel screams as it rips upward. Glass shatters. Emergency systems fail. The facility groans under the pressure and loses.
And then I see him.
Shoal.
He’s standing on a broken catwalk as we ascend, eyes wide, face streaked with dust and defeat.
“Phoebe!” he shouts over the rising storm. “Don’t do this! You don’t understand—there’s still a way. I can fix this!”
I stare at him through the cockpit glass, fingers clenched tight around the orb.
“No,” I say, voice low. “You can’t.”
“Please,” he begs. “You don’t know what’s coming—”
“I know enough,” I snap. “I’ve seen what you’ve done. What you let Lily do. You had your chance, Shoal.”
He reaches a hand out. Useless.
I leave him behind.
We breach the surface of the facility like a spear. Coral and steel explode around us. Alarms scream. Lights die. The sky splits open as we rise into the ocean above, powerful enough now that pressure no longer matters.
Then the real alarm starts.
“Unidentified craft approaching fast,” Peter shouts from the sensor deck. “Three, no—five vessels, all Enkian signature.”
Miore’s face tightens. “Stan.”
Of course. Shoal’s pet butcher.
“Brace yourselves,” Wake barks. “Tyler, you’ve been studying this vessel, yes?”
Tyler nods, eyes wide.
“Then, you’re up!”
“Oh, shi…” Tyler’s eyes pop even wider, a broad grin overtaking his face. “Battle stations. Everyone move!”
The warship tilts sharply as we dodge the first missile. Delphi grabs the control rail beside me and channels a blast of pressure behind us to deflect a second. Cora taps into the ship’s remaining comms and sends out a jamming pulse.
Tyler and Malu take the weapon controls.
Twin cannons on either side of the warship roar to life, belching beams of Ether energy. One of Stan’s sleek black interceptors veers to avoid the blast but catches the edge—its wing is vaporized instantly. It spirals into a trench below.
“Got one!” Miore grins grimly. “Three left!”
The orb burns in my hands, syncing with the ship’s core. I don’t steer with a joystick. I will the ship forward. My vision overlaps with its sensors—I am the manta ray now, darting through underwater canyons, dodging torpedoes, tracking heat signatures like prey.
Stan’s ship is faster.
It slices through the water behind us, its weapons charging.
“Thermal fissure ahead,” Cora warns from navigation. “It’s unstable—lava vents and pressure breaks.”
“We can’t survive that,” Peter says.
“We won’t need to,” I whisper. The orb pulses once in my palm.
I dive.
The ship doesn’t hesitate. It dives with me.
Wake swears as we descend into the narrowest part of the rift, the water glowing orange from the molten fissures below. Geysers burst around us, steaming jets that could peel open our hull like tinfoil.
Behind us, one of Stan’s ships isn’t fast enough. It catches the blast of a vent and explodes, taking a second with it.
“Two more!” Delphi shouts.
“Hang on!” I yell.
I push the orb deeper into the socket.
The ship responds instantly—thrusters surge, wings tighten, systems scream. We lurch through the gap just as another vent erupts.
The thermal blast slams into the space behind us—right where Stan’s last ship had been.
It’s gone.
Silence falls.
Nothing but the ship’s slow, exhausted hum and the distant bubbling hiss of volcanic steam.
And me.
I collapse forward over the console, the orb slipping from my fingers. My whole body trembles. My skin feels like it’s made of lightning and stone. I can’t move. I can’t even breathe right.
Wake’s there in an instant.
He kneels beside me, lifts me into his arms, brushes hair from my face. “Phoebe—Phoebe, look at me.”
I do. Just barely.
He presses his forehead to mine. “I’m here. You did it.”
“Is it gone?” I whisper.
He nods. “All of them. You got us out.”
I let out a slow breath and sink into him.
For a long moment, the warship glides in silence.
Then Wake says the words I never thought I’d hear.
“We’ll go home.”
I blink up at him, startled.
He meets my gaze, eyes raw but certain. “After this... we return. It’s long past time that I finish my mission.”
I nod, too weak to speak, but inside—I feel something anchor. Something real.
Cora appears at my side, kneeling. “You need to rest,” she says. “But when you wake up… we’ve got work to do.”
“Finally” I rasp. “We’re finally going to the Abyss.”
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